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UK Coffee Week

John Farrer & Co Tea & Coffee Merchants, Kendal, is proud to support UK Coffee Week, 29th April – 05th May, an initiative designed to get the UK’s coffee industry and coffee consumers to support Project Waterfall, simply by enjoying their daily coffee.

CELEBRATE COFFEE. HAVE FUN. RAISE FUNDS.

This year a percentage of the money raised from our online retail coffee sales will be donated to Project Waterfall, with 100% of the funds raised during the week going to support Project Waterfall’s efforts to bring clean water, education and sanitation to coffee-growing communities throughout the world.

Project Waterfall is an initiative developed by the Allegra Foundation to bring clean water to the communities which grow our coffee. Since 2011, Project Waterfall has raised over £1 Million and delivered clean drinking water to over 34,000 people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Vietnam and Nicaragua.

This year UK Coffee Week will continue to raise funds for Project Waterfall’s ongoing work in the rural Jabi Tehnan district, in Amhara, north eastern Ethiopia, a region that covers 59,733 square miles, contains Lake Tana the source of Africa’s Blue Nile, boasts Ethiopia’s highest mountain Ras Dashan, standing at 14,930 feet, and is home to a population of some 17 million people.

2018 saw Project Waterfall and WaterAid teamed up in to begin to deliver a four-year project designed to bring clean drinking water, education and sanitation to around 10,000 people across the district of Jabi Tehnan – 2019 sees the continued fundraising effort to support this project.

Ethiopia is considered the biological and cultural home of coffee, there are a number of stories linked to its discover – our favourite relates to a 9th-century Ethiopian goat-herder, called Kaldi, who, noticing the energizing effects when his flock nibbled on the bright red berries of a certain bush, chewed on the fruit himself. His exhilaration prompted him to bring the berries to a monk in a nearby monastery. But the monk disapproved of their use and threw them into the fire, from which an enticing aroma billowed, causing other monks to come and investigate. The roasted beans were quickly raked from the embers, ground up, and dissolved in hot water, yielding the world’s first cup of coffee…

Whatever the truth behind its origin, coffee farming provides an income for over 15 million people across Ethiopia and Jabi Tehnan is no exception with nearly 40% of the jobs locally provided by the coffee industry.

However, the stark facts of reality are that only 39% of the population have access to basic safe water and just 7% have access to basic sanitation. Without clean drinking water and safe toilet facilities many Ethiopians struggle with a range of preventable illnesses. Over 8,000 children under five die each year from diarrhoea. Women and children spend up to 8 hours every day walking to collect water, precious time that could be spent with their families, in school learning or earning a living.

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